Project 1
 High voice of the community. I'm Laura Prosser, the digital marketing manager here for IWA North America. And I would like to invite you to start following us on Instagram. It's your chance to obtain exclusive updates on product announcements, industry news, upcoming educational events, and heartwarming stories about our local team and industry professionals. So let's get social together! Simply start following us on Instagram at. That's Instagram at. We'll see you there. Welcome to voices from the bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an email at info at voices from the bench and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 373. Your voices from the bench. My name is Elvis. I was going to say my name is grandma, but it's still Barbara. It's not really no update, but she's being induced. Since this comes out Monday. She's being induced tomorrow, so I'll be a grandma by Tuesday. Unless she goes this weekend, which I hope she does. So we'll stay well no matter what. By the time we talk again. I know right? Barb, my life will finally be going in a positive direction, so I'm excited about that. Oh, I thought it was time to settle down. Start knitting. Oh, no. Front step. Yeah. Yeah, we know that'll never happen, but it's a good thought. Yeah. I'll take. I'll take care of him and hold him and feed him and play with him. And then say, here you go, Zach. You can have him back. There you go. That's the pleasure of being a grandparent, right? Right the fuck on. So we do know it's a it's a boy. Yes, it's a boy. Nice. Do they have a name yet? Yes. His name is Chetan. It's an Indian name. She's Indian. So they're going to call him Chay, which I love. And then h a c h a t o n. And then Patrick, who? They just lost their father in September, so it's awesome. Nice. That's an interesting name. I kind of like. I know I heard that. Yeah. Yep. Same. Very cool. Thank you. So what exactly was going on this morning at your house? Oh, I got a peacock in my yard. And so my neighbor just called me. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You have a peacock? Yes. There's a peacock that is found in our neighborhood. I'll send you a picture. You can post it, but, uh. Yeah. Like a wild peacock. Yes. Like it's a big, beautiful mail and it's found my yard and our neighbor's yard and my neighborhood. And it's loud and they're beautiful. But yeah, that's what I was dealing with. I hear they're mega assholes. They are. They ruin cars and they peck at cars. And that's what she was just calling me about. She said, If I'm going to blast that motherfucker, I'm like, okay, good morning. It's 9:00. But that's how she rolls. But are they protected? Like, can you I don't know, I don't know. I don't think you can kill it. But she wants to like, blast it with water and try to get away from it. Do you think it's like somebody's pet that got out? There's not wild peacocks in America. Yes there are. They were. They were where I used to run. I used to see them. And now they've migrated. Now they've migrated south only about a mile and a half from where I was running. And now they're in our neighborhood, not only our neighborhood, my literal backyard. So it's kind of cool. I think it's cool, but that's me. Well, I mean, it's kind of cool, but yeah, you don't want to be scared to go out in your yard. Yeah. Just send your dogs out there and let nature. That's what I told her. I said it wouldn't come in my yard if my dogs were there, but they were over at Zach, so we can't we share the dogs. So yeah, they go over there Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then come back. So they weren't there. But if they were there, yeah, just let them loose and uh, problem solved. No problems. So what's going on? Well, in about a month I am. And hopefully you are still yet to be determined. Correct. We're going to be at the FDLE Southern States Expo and Symposium June 12th to the 13th. Now, this is a great regional show and it's a must attend if you're even remotely in the area. Literally. I mean, seriously, it's like Orlando. Most of the country on the East Coast can get there. Yep. True that. Of course, just like last year, we're going to be set up with the good people at Jensen Dental. So I was talking to them last week and found out who's going to be at their booth. Oh, and if you want to learn more about mio, or if you have specific questions about mio and of course, the techniques. It is the Terry Mcquiston show. Oh, he's so cool. Yeah, we talked to him last year at FDLE, The Real Deal, and I think it was episode 332. This guy knows his stuff, and I guess he's doing all the hands on all the demonstrations, everything the whole weekend. It's literally the Terry show. Yep. So he's there most of Friday and all day Saturday. Answering your questions now. I'll be there and hopefully you all day Friday and Saturday. But don't ask me about mio. I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I do a good hands on on what not to do. Very good. Yeah. Okay. But if you do want to come on the podcast, you know, come find us, talk to us and we'll get your story. Love to have you on. Head over to FDLE for more information. Sweet. So this week's conversation. Barb, I have no idea what you're doing. You are not there. And honestly, I can't even remember because it was so long ago. I don't know either. I don't even know because these episodes are like, you know, three, three months out, so I don't know. But I'm unfortunate that I was before IDs long ago. That's how long. But I luckily got to talk about one of my favorite things. Oh. Surgical guides. Yes. So for years I've been planning on various platforms and have seen them get better and better over time. But when someone turned me on to real guide from MVPs, I knew I found the one that could probably do it all. Actually, before we started recording this for the last hour, I've been working on a stackable guide on Real Guide. That's fun. Yeah. So a good friend of the podcast, Pablo Lubrano, who is on episode 202, has since gone from an in-office technician to working with implant content. Concierge. Concierge. Thank you. You should see how much I butcher this on this episode with high end hotels. Yes. I wonder if he wears a funny hat and jacket when he does it. Probably. I hope so. So he's been planning implant cases all day using real guide with that implant concierge. Also joining Paulo is Tiffany Scheffler, who is the North American product manager for Zen V. They both come on to talk about their history and labs, what real guide is, what it can do and why everybody needs it in their digital workflow, so don't just take their word for it. I love doing guides on this software suite. So join us as we chat with Paulo Lubrano and Tiffany Scheffler. Voices from the bench. The interview. You can famously be the one that I missed one. How's that? Oh, yeah. If you do it enough. Fancy. Yeah, if I do. Enough. All right. So every every period. Basically, I have to drop an F-bomb. Yes. The record is 46 and an hour. You can do it. Oh, you get 46? Yeah. You don't know Sandra from Finland? I don't think so. Oh, yeah. She got 46 in an hour. It's the record. Wow. Wow. Good for her. That's what I'm saying. And that's that's tombstone worthy. All right. Hell, yeah. Have we scared you off yet, Tiffany? No, no, you're gonna have to do better than that. I've been in the lab space too long. Elvis, I know how this works. Ah, I love it. I love it. All right, so our goal today is real guide and a lot of shenanigans. Ready? Yeah. Yeah. I'm super excited today to bring on two people to talk to me about what's become more of a hobby and a little bit of a passion for me. We're going to talk about real guide from MVPs, but let's welcome everyone to the podcast welcoming back Paolo Lubrano. That's it. Is it really? Yeah. Paolo, how are you, sir? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing real well for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any idea when your episode was on? I meant to look it up and I completely forgot. But it's been probably, what, 3 or 4 years? I think it's been definitely two years. Yeah, I think it was between 2021 and 2022, I would say. Yeah. So it's been a hot minute. I think you've gone through some professional changes. Yeah, quite a bit. Excellent. We're gonna get all into that. And then we're also welcoming for the first time, Tiffany Crippler. How are you? I'm doing well. Elvis, thank you so much for having me on. Uh, so I'm the North American product manager at Zim V, and I'm very excited to talk a little bit about Real Guide today with you. Nice. I want to find out how you became the what did you say the North American product manager of V. So let's start with you Paula. We know your story, but we'll get back to you. Wow. So, Tiffany, how did you end up in in the lab space? Sure, sure. So many moons ago, I actually worked for a large lab group that had over 30 different dental labs and was working there and enjoying it. You're not saying it who it is, but we can probably narrow it down. Yeah. If you if you had if you had to guess, I bet you'd guessed correctly. Yeah. Okay. So you started there. I mean, just like green with no knowledge. Yeah. So started there and I mean sales experience for sure, but not dental lab experience. Okay. Yeah. So worked there and was really loving it and enjoyed it. But my area was predominantly serving implants by Zimmer Biomet. So at that time I had gotten to know the rep. And she said, well, you know, you really know the lab side of this quite well. And we have something called it was a digital specialist at the time. And there's a role that's coming up in the northeast. Would you like to try it? I said, okay. So I gave it a whirl and really loved it. I was part of a great team and learned all the parts and pieces. And, you know, I think when you work for an implant manufacturer, having the respect of how important dental laboratories are within the space, right. Because you can yeah, you can have a great, great surgeon place an implant and then you can have this excellent restorative plan. But the case that comes from the lab is so crucial in the success of all of it working. Right. So she and I got to chatting and I applied for it. I got that job and and was there for a number of years and worked as what was called a lead on that team. But, um, there was a, an opportunity to move into marketing and really impact from all in North America, you know, as my coverage. So I was like, I have to give this a shot and, and still work in the lab space, right? So all of my portfolio really falls under what would benefit a dental laboratory. So I didn't have to lose those connections or that side of it. Sure. So that's that's how I landed here. And I've been here now for six years, coming up on six years, and really love it and love the people. Like I get to work with Paolo and like, he's he said, I'm every day I'm scared. I know I feel bad for her. I really feel bad for her. So yeah, it's a it's a great group though, so no complaints. And, uh, loving it here. So when you started at the quote unquote large lab, you came in as sales. Yeah I did. What did you sell before? So prior to that I did some pharma sales and then I had. Yeah. So I did that and then real estate. I find it interesting when people come into a dental lab in sales and you're having to sell specifically custom made things. Was it easy for you rather than just selling like a widget or in your case, pills or whatever you sold? Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. And I'll tell you what, it was eye opening. I will say that it was not easy. I would challenge anybody that could ever equate the responsibility of a dental laboratory with easy because, as you stated, the customization of products and that desire for perfection. Right. Because I truly feel at dental labs are artists and they're perfectionists and they desire, you know, things to work and to be beautiful. It was eye opening for me because there are so many variables that go into each case, right? I guess the best way is it kind of gave me a wake up call to the first week, truly understanding how challenging it is, but also when you do hit it out of the ballpark, which happens more times than not, right? Yeah. We just don't hear about it. But yes. No, it's, you know, Elvis. that's a great point, right? Is. Yeah. You don't. But how? It's life changing. And I used to challenge everybody when I first started talking for, for me as, as a digital specialist, I used to say, do me a favor. And the next time you get that case, that is the slam dunk, please call the lab because they get the calls when it's an incorrect margin or it doesn't fit right or the occlusions off. So please call them when you pop in that, you know, beautiful crown. And the or the abutment fits perfectly and is exactly the design you wish for. Please call them and let them know because it is. Sometimes you feel it's a little bit of a a thankless job at times, which is unfortunate because it's so important. Yeah, just don't call before nine or after three. That's always great point. Great point am right. Am yeah okay okay. So Paula, I think when you were on you were still working with a protagonist, I think out in Connecticut, not quite a protagonist. Uh, we had uh, yes, I was chair side. Yeah, that's what I thought. Um, yeah, I was chair side and I was working with, uh, we had three GPS at a time that acted like orthodontist, maybe. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah, but he's not a person. He's a GP. Yeah. We had a periodontist or oral surgeon and Adonis and Peter Adonis as well, an orthodontist. So it was a multi specialist office. Yep. And well six seven. No, eight months ago. I forgot when. September. Mhm. September I joined. I joined the implant concierge. Yes. Yeah. Now I, uh part of me and I do guided surgery all day long. So what, they just called you and said, hey, I've heard about you. I listened to your podcast episode three years ago, and we think you'd be a good fit. I mean, how does something like that happen? And what is implant conscious? You're what? How do you say on condition concierge. Concierge. So it all started actually on LinkedIn. Oh, okay. Where, uh, Brett Royal, who's the CEO of Implant Concierge and he's the, you know, he's the director of the guided, uh, surgery for for implant concierge. And, uh, it was something very stupid, actually, I'm not gonna lie. Most things are. Yeah, but it turned into where I am now. So what happened is he endorsed me on LinkedIn, which I didn't know you could do it. And I realized that I have a bunch of them, and I never, I never knew until back in May, I think. And so it turns me on into dentistry. And, you know, LinkedIn decided, oh, you can send this text saying, uh oh, thank you very much for your endorsement. I was like, sure, I'll do it. Yeah. And obviously I knew who he was because I attended his lecture last year in, uh, in Chicago. I knew, you know, I knew the whole process. So thank them. And he replies back. And, you know, then I said, you know, I'm looking for a new opportunity. So if there's something available, let me know. It never hurts to ask. No. Exactly. And three months later, I'm here. You know, it was definitely a big change because now I'm sitting in front of computers versus yes, I did that before too, but before, you know, oh, let me mill this ground really quick. Oh, let me glaze this. Oh, let me see your every step. Yeah. Let me help assistant. Let me break a room. Let me help serialisation. Let me do this I was everywhere. Yeah. Or one of our doc had an issue with the scanner, and I would jump in and help with the scan. I would scan the patient, or I would, uh, design the crown for chair side if they had other stuff doing so, you know, it was it was a huge change. You have a lot of clinical experience in your past, right? I mean, I do yeah. Yeah. So it's been it's been a big change. And there's, there's some parts and pieces that I still miss a little bit. Sure. I don't miss the smell of monomer, although I kind of do sometimes. I'm coming out with a candle this Christmas so. I'm on board for that, man. I'm baking a heartbeat. You know, there's some some stuff that I still miss. Like, one of the things that I actually really, really miss is the. It sounds so weird saying it, but it's the end of ice. I love the smell of. And really. Oh my God. We had a weird, a very weird, very, very weird when I first started at the office. I believe it was meant of every time I walk around and I smelled mint, I was like, oh, and was delicious. And in the past couple of years, though, we couldn't find mint and or they didn't want to buy anymore and they switched to vanilla. Oh, dude, it was so good. Oh, jeez. Every time I walk around, you smell vanilla. I was like, oh my God, I just want it. I just want to bring it home. In case he's listening. You can pay him. And just, uh, one thing that I definitely don't miss is assistant. Oh, yeah. That. Oh, my God, it was so bad, I bet. Kudos on and on on this. I mean, they do a phenomenal job and kudos on them. But damn assistant is a pain tedious isn't it? I mean, I don't know a whole lot about it, but not much that I mean, it is tedious for him, for the for the end and honest for sure, but not enough for the assistant and the assistant. You're just falling asleep trying not to fall asleep. What exactly is implant connoisseur? I mean, concierge, concierge? I'm gonna have to write that down. Implant concierge is, um. Uh, we're a treatment plan coordinator. Virtual treatment plan coordinator that we, for instance, if you're to know how to do a surgical guide, but you want to do it, or if you don't know how to, whatever it is that you need to do a guided surgery involve, then we can help you. We're here to help either labs or offices, and sometimes we work with both. Actually, we have customers that we work with. Both like a lab could call or sign up online or however it works, and you could do the treatment planning for them for their doctor. Correct. Interesting. And this is owned by Zim? Yes. Uh, when did that all happen? Five years ago. That's right. Yeah. Right around then we were we had the software at the time that we knew was on the horizon, and I think that was being looked at, but there was just a tremendous need for, as Pablo stated, the ability to provide additional services for for doctors and labs and honestly get some people on the map, maybe some of the smaller labs that didn't have either the the folks within the laboratory or the equipment to, to, you know, treatment plan some of these cases and produce guides. So that's how it was born. And it's, it's. It's been really, really wonderful. And one of the questions we always get is do they only work with products? And it is Switzerland and they work with all implant manufacturers. Yeah. You would really limit your scope if you just did one implant. Correct. Actually, I believe Brett told me the numbers and I think 80% is actually non interesting. So not Zimmer Biomet or any of the you know like today for instance I worked on a mega gen no. Uh Neo dent sorry Neo Dent and Nobel. So and they're all both of them were big cases like boom productions. So we work with any company out there and including some companies that I've never even heard of. And you know me well, Elvis, that. Yeah, you send me an x ray. I'll tell you what it is. Within not even a day. I only send you x ray identifications on your off working time. I want to state that right now. You said any time before 8 a.m. is what I heard. That's it? Yeah, yeah. That's funny. How big is this team? I mean, you're not just it, are you, Apollo? It's just me. What? No. I'm joking, I'm joking. I was gonna say. Wow. You only did two today. That's it? Yeah. That's it. No, no, the team is is. I think we're roughly about 70 people. 70. Yeah. Seven zero. Yep. Oh my gosh. All the treatment plan coordinators are they have an oral surgery background. So you know they were assistants for the for oral surgeon. So they have. A good background. Dental background? Yeah. And then we have a provisional team that we. We do with surgical guides and, uh, we're, um, I think we're like four people now. You're one of them. I am one of them, yes. Okay, so you're one of four, but then you have 70 people that overlook all the plans. And not only that, but I believe we have 3 or 2 radiologists on board. I might be wrong with the with that number, honestly. For instance, if you want to be sure that you can place the implant, you're sure that the combine is fine, the patient's fine, blah, blah, blah. You can ask a radiology report and we have a radiologist on board that can help you do a interpretation of the radiology. So no, it's it's it's pretty cool. Yeah. It's very, very cool. What is your role with this department? Tiffany are you planning any guides or anything? I am not. No, but what I do is I work from the marketing aspect with Implant Concierge. So. So it falls under our digital portfolio. So what we were trying to truly do was, you know, find a way to encourage our customers, regardless of where they're at, within their digital journey, to know that we have solutions, services and products. That they can come to us right wherever they're at, and we're going to meet them where they're at and help them expand upon what they're doing digitally. Because, you know, we're I think we're at a point right now in our industry where we just know you can't fight it anymore, right? If you hate it or you love it, it's here to stay. So yeah. So I work with, you know, polo and team at at ECC and they're phenomenal to work with. And as Paulo stated when he was onboarded, I was so excited, had an opportunity to meet him at a few events and just really knew he would add a lot to what we're trying to do, and he already has added so much value. It's been really good because not only can people use this implant this year, Conda Sierra will make you say it right by the end of this. Oh, I challenge you, I won't. Not only can people use that service, but you also sell the software directly. You kind of undercut your own service. Well, so it's kind of two different things, right? Yeah. So if we're talking about real guide as a software right. Which I see or implant Concierge utilizes Real Guide as its software for planning. If you are somebody who wants to do it all yourself, right, you're a laboratory. CAD cam is, you know, in your back pocket. You've been trained, you are ready to rock. Give me a great software solution that's super easy to utilize. Cost effective for the production of either surgical guides or now we have a CAD component to the software, which is remarkable. You're good to go with that with that software, right? Maybe you're in a lab that you have the folks to do the treatment plan, you have that expertise, you have the equipment, and you just want to own the entire workflow. That's where Real Guide is, is the answer and solution. If you if you don't have that right and and maybe you're starting into offering guided surgical solutions for your customers or you need a little bit more support on the journey or, you know, some of our customers, actually, Elvis, are individuals who get bombarded where it starts to take off in their area and they have so many cases coming in. They have the equipment and the talent. They don't have the time. Yeah. And now their their safety blanket, their backup is implant Concierge to help with those cases. So it was really making sure that we had a vast array of options that we could meet our customers where they needed to be, because what we found was when we told them where they had to be and said, you have to do it this way with this and that. It did not go over well. So now we say, tell us where you are and we will meet you there. Yeah. Telling a technician where you want them to be not always the best. Right, right. That's that's fine. So when did we kind of get into the real guy? Because it existed, or did you create it? I thought it existed before. I created you, Paolo. You're amazing. Why are you wasting your time on this podcast? No. But seriously. Right. Oh, man. If I created. I had a nice brain, honestly, but I don't. I don't. My brain doesn't function like that. My brain only function with teeth and implants. Yeah, I. The background is wild. Yeah. Do we know the history of the software? Yeah. So the history is interesting. So we had been looking at an organization to adding a software solution, but we didn't want to add something to just say we had it. We wanted something that would be much different than anything else out there on the market. Right. Yeah. So real guide is dongle free. Mhm. We wanted something that when a user decided to log into their account, they'd get the best version of it every time. We wanted something that if a doctor called us or a lab called us and said, hey, I'm utilizing this implant, I need it added to the software. It wasn't a four year turnaround. So, you know, all these things kind of fed into the true desire for it was Zimmer Biomet at the time now. Right. To get into this space and and real guy just was the solution for all of it. You know, we launched a few years ago. It's been one of our number one products digitally. We have a full team now that just specializes in the software. The software has evolved to now include CAD, as you know, multiple CAD solutions and options. So we're having people utilize this that are like, you know, diehard users of competitive softwares. And they're like, this is saving so much time. You don't have to use mesh mixer. You don't have to go in between platforms. It has. So it's so robust is the word they like to use when they talk about it. So it's it's been a great launch and it just continues to, you know move forward. And it's so great when we do our, our, um, we do what we call, you know, a demo of the software where we go and we that's available to anybody who's interested. It's free of charge, will pop on with you and show you some of the features. I mean, it's an exceptionally high amount of people who implement the software after that demo, and it's because it does things differently than other softwares on the market. And and those differences make a big, big difference with time saving. I'm a big user of real guy. I mean, not as big as Paolo, but I'm big. Um, and I've had to use probably six other implant planning softwares in the past. And real guide to me just it makes sense. So many of them have you do these weird workflows that just don't flow as nice as real guide. I mean, follow you probably. I mean, you've probably experienced as many, if not more. Yeah, I've used the diagnostic PDX. Yeah. Blue sky bio, three shapes. Yeah. Three shapes. There's stuff that the real guide is extremely powerful. Very, very powerful. And yes, it may not be user friendly at first. It takes some time to get used to it, but once you get uses like, oh my God, I can't do this. Oh my God, it's it's wild. It's absolutely wild. I'll say that I've yet to run into anything that I haven't been able to do. But sometimes it takes a little struggling to find out how you do it. It's not like it was hard. I just had to know where to go. And of course, you were there for exactly. Of course. On non-working hours. Of course. That's funny. What makes Real Guide better? Let's talk about some of the features that stand out over the other options. Well, first it's cloud based. So why is that important? For me I kept losing the stupid dongle every time. The tiny little thing sticking in the USB needed to go away about ten years ago. Yeah. Yes it did. It should. Yeah. But three shapes still. They're actually still there. They're diagnostic. I still got it. I know this is still there. So this is a cloud based, and you can download it wherever you want. You want to iPad. You want to work on your iPad. You can you can do it works on an iPad. Does it? Yeah. Yes it does. Even on the phone. I have it on my phone. You can play an implant on your phone. I mean, I wouldn't do it, but. Yeah, that's. You could sketch work, man. Yeah. I mean, well, it's funny you brought that up. I think that's like, the number one thing that everyone loves is they say regardless, like, I can download Real Guide on any computer as many computers as I want. Right. So you don't have to pay per computer or anything. No. You and you work because you log in, right? So as long as you have access to the internet, you can you can literally what he said you can work from anywhere if you have internet connection, including a mac. Oh, even a MacBook. There's no there's no escaping the job that needs to be done. Well, it's so funny you say that, Elvis. So as the marketer behind some of the stuff, right? So they were like, well, what should we do for, you know, a big campaign around real guys? So I did all these different campaigns that had like people out at the beach on their laptop. Yeah. And then I got a phone call and somebody was like, this is so sad. But I actually signed up because I was thinking, my wife can't really complain because I'll still be on the beach with the kids. I was like, I'm gonna get somebody in big trouble. Yeah, I love seeing people when they're traveling and they're like, at an airport and they're working. That was me traveling to Chicago. Yep. I was on the plane, and, uh, it was actually quite funny. I was on the plane. I had an hour. Was it two hours flight? And I downloaded a couple cases. Finished my first one, and I jumped on a boom production because I knew it was going to take me some time to do it. And three quarters away, I see this. This lady next to me staring at my computer was like, okay, that's a little weird, but, you know, and I found out she was one of the protagonists at UConn. Oh. Heading over to Chicago for mid-winter. Yeah. For me. Winter, exactly. Which I didn't know, but it wasn't. It wasn't for my winter. Actually, I didn't know, but there was a class. Yeah. Big orthodontist meeting. Same weekend. Yeah, yeah. On that Friday, I was like, damn, I wish I knew I would have gone there too, actually. So even though it's web based, you can still download and play it and use it when you don't have the internet, as long as you have the internet. Yes. Oh, so you paid for their airplane internet? No. So you can still work on it. You just cannot export anything. Oh, but you can still work on it. Yes. So you could download 20 cases. Go out in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Do your cases. You just can't. Are interesting. You cannot export anything unless you have, uh, internet. Excellent. Well, that's a huge thing. I mean, being able to do it anywhere. It's pretty cool. And, you know, one of the things that I'm sure you guys can, if anybody can understand and feel the pain here so much that the problem is, is all of us are so busy. Right. Especially when we're trying to collaborate on these larger cases. So what we thought was so cool, and what we've continued to hear is, you know, being able to work because let's say Paolo starts a case, he can add whomever he wishes to that case, right, for visibility standpoints. And it just helps that communication. So you're not calling the doctor with a question and waiting or waiting even on an email. This platform's a little different. And Pablo, maybe you can speak to that because I know you live it more than me, but just that direct connection to the decision makers on these cases. Yeah. So what you can do and it's actually very cool. You can send everything within real guide. So for instance, Elvis, you're designing a case. You're not sure you want me to design it. And you send it to the real Guy production team, and then, you know, they'll give it to me. I'll design it and then I'll share it back to you so you can take a look at it, and I'll add my notes as like, hey, I will do this and this and this because of this or whatever. So there's no emails back and forth. So if I'm designing a case and I need a doctor to look at it, do they need to have the real guide software for them to view it? Yes they do. Okay. I believe they do. Right, Tiffany. They have to have it downloaded. Yes, but they don't have to, you know, if they're worried about the subscription fee or anything like that, they don't need it. Really the only need it if they want to design and export the file. But you can certainly send that file to them and say, hey, this is how I planned it, please approve it, or please tell me what I need to modify and then you'll you'll go from there. But can they get a version that they can actually move around? I can export a PDF and send it to a doctor. And it's just kind of like a, you know, kind of hard to really see everything. Yeah. Whose dogs are barking? Yeah. It's, um, my dogs downstairs. They see two dogs, uh, across the street and they're going, oh, no, no, it's the worst, dude. Well, I can say this too, though. Like, if we're going to talk a little bit about the cost, right? Because we know that in today's day and age that does certainly, you know, that feeds into decision making with what softwares are being utilized. You could drop price if you want. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, you know, and I won't get into the craziness of it, but even to just get into the guide module, I mean, you can kind of touch it's like $49 a month is, you know, the fee. So it's nothing insane like and for me to, you know, when we were kind of going to market with it and I was learning because I was selling it at that point and not a marketer, I kept thinking to myself, well, what else is out there? And how do people position these products? And they're like tens of thousands of dollars when there's upgrades to modules and there's all these fees. Elvis I was in shock. So I said, how cool is it that, you know, you sign up for this and we decide to launch them insane bar module. We are going to upload it today. The way it stands is we upload that and you have access to it as soon as you go on your computer and you make your internet connection log in, you are ready to rock with the newest and the best. And it's not a $10,000 additional large fee. You know, that's huge, especially in today's market with all the digital we have to get into. Everybody wants fearless. I mean, just just make it easy. I don't understand why it has to be so complicated, right? Look, you know, speaking of prices, I mean, you know, how much could I not cost? It's always on sale, though. Yeah. Wait wait, wait. You're. You're telling me when people try to sell us something, it's on sale. Yeah, that's what they tell me. And you're right. Every time I open up Real Guide, there's an update. And it's usually more implant parts and components. And I just say yes, because I never know if I'm going to need it or not. But I don't know what's being updated. But it it seems like whoever's in charge of that is constantly updating it. Oh yeah. We we have a team that is constantly looking to update the libraries in real guide, whether it's a sleeve, new implant abutments, or on the CAD portion. There's a great team behind that. And I have to they're phenomenal. I gotta be honest. And they've always been phenomenal. Even when I did the beta testing for the CAD software back, uh, two, three, three years ago now, and every time I give my feedback, they were on it. Wow. We're going to talk about this cad. I want to know more about it, but I don't think I got an answer to my question of if I send a case to a doctor through real guide, can they move it around 360? You can see it so they can move that around. Oh yes. Yes they can. They can see it. Yes they can see it. They can see 360. They can see any view that they want to see. That's awesome. Now if they wanted to move anything and send that back to me. Is that possible? But they have to pay for the subscription or the. I don't think they have to pay, but in order for you to send it to them, you have to make sure there's a little checkmark. Yeah. At the bottom left it says editable or not. Oh, okay. So if you check it, they're able to edit the the plan and send it back to you. But if you if you remove that then they cannot edit it because some doctors. That's good. I mean some doctors I don't trust they'd get in there and everything would turn upside down. And then others, I would gladly let them move it the micro fraction of a millimeter that they want to move it just so they feel happy. Let them do it. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And they don't have to pay anything on their end. Tiffany can probably chime in on this. I don't want to say something stupid. Yeah, no, you're good to go. You're good to go. So if there's. Yeah. No, I think with a majority of if they're going to be utilizing any of the features that modify it and then they're looking to send it back, that is on a subscription. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah okay. I think it's wise because I can't tell you how many times I've gone back and forth with 13 PDFs to move something. Yeah. Just slightly. It just makes things a lot more streamlined in today's day and age. It's all about communication. Yes it is. What else can people get excited about for real? Good. We have a phenomenal, phenomenal module in, uh, on the CAD software, which is where it's the bar module. Oh yeah, that's it's pretty sick. It works just like blender basically. If you're familiar with blender. Blender I know of it. Yeah. Oh, you guys can do eye bars in this thing. Yes. Works exactly like that. Works exactly like that. And I posted a case. Um. Maybe about a year from a year ago, maybe where I designed a little bar and I sent it to manufacturer. Got it back. And I put the two pieces together. We delivered it and we call it a day. But it was so easy. This is part of the CAD feature that Tiffany you mentioned earlier. That's kind of new. What was the thought behind having CAD and and what all can you do with it? So I think for us, it was one of those deals where we kept hearing from our customers that we really love the software, but we need to take it to the next level. So if you look at real Guide from a 30,000 foot view, we had plan right, which allows you to do the treatment, planning and guide. You can then design the surgical guide. But we know such an important part is the CAD, right? The actual design of where we're going to go restorative and how we're going to get it over the finish line. So for us, it was always natural that, you know, this was going to be the end game for us. And then from there again, since this is, you know, as in the product, we now have the opportunity to, as Paulo stated, you know, get feedback from customers on what do they need from that bar module and what areas and weaknesses might other software's have, and how do we play in? And we offer solutions to those. So with CAD, the cool thing about it is what we have today. We could have a conversation in in a month. And then go to the developers in the week after and have different solutions so quickly, right? So for me, the cool thing about the software is it has a pulse on what the industry needs. And we're not afraid to to say that there are things that we could probably improve upon or do differently. And I think we're positioned in a unique place because we can do that with real guide. You know, there's limited AI in there. Uh, you can design and print the guide, you name it. But for me, I think that the CAD was, you know, just again, the evolution of of the software. This was a huge part of it. And it's it's not going to be the same cad today if we talk in three months from now, which is what makes it so exciting for us, is that it continues to evolve. It gets better. Yeah. So you mentioned bars. What all can you do in the CAD? Can you do single units? Of course. Okay. Can do single units, custom abutments, Marilyn bridges, mock ups, dentures Marilyn Bridges. It's not even implant related. No, but it's part of the CAD software. Interesting. Could you do regular crown and bridge? Yeah. So this can basically replace another. Your three. Yeah. Or your ex. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Absolutely. I had no idea you could do that much. I thought it was all based off of implants only because you planned it. And that's. No, no, no. You can grab the skin. Let's say your doc sends you, I don't know, a single crown. And they want to do a screw routine crown on. On the next day, Jason, you can bring that skin into the CAD software, into the CAD project, and you can select whichever tooth you need to do. Let's say six and seven. Six is, uh, the crown. Seven is currently in Crown. We'll say it's, uh, uh, I don't know, 03.5 and you design your crown and then you, you can mill it, export STL file, you mill it, or if you want to do a custom abutment, you can send it to the Baltic. Yep. And have them build a custom abutment. So in that situation, let's say the adjacent tooth doesn't have an implant yet. Could you design the crown? Make a guide that fits over that crown, have them place the guide and then immediate load. Yeah that's insane. All in the same software because usually you'd have to design it in three shape or XO CAD, then bring that design in as an STL model and then build off of that. Yeah. So what you can do is you can actually you can actually do the CAD part first. You know, you upload your Dicom files, the your marker scan antagonist and whatnot, and then you go on the CAD project right away. You don't even start the planning, right? So you remove whatever tooth you need to remove because it's whatever. And you design both crowns. Um, let's say you do it again, six and seven. You need to plan for seven, but seven is an existing crown that needs to go. It's rotated, doesn't look good. You just want to redesign properly or aesthetically. Yeah. So you make sure it's in line with the occlusion and make sure it's in line with eight, nine and ten. And then you can export. You literally click on that file, right click and you draw. You go down and it says Export to planar. And then it exports the plan option. And when you go to your data import for the planning, there it is. And it's part of your plan when you're placing the input part. Correct. It's insanely cool that it's all within one software. Oh yeah, that's how we design most of our stuff. Well, and it's kind of funny, too. Paulo. I, you know, Elvis, I know we were all together in, uh, Chicago. Um, we, uh, we definitely were, like, pretty pumped. And we, like, we put Braille guide and we had, like, a like, oh, there's, like, a normal sized booth. So we came back from the meeting and everyone's like. The guys were so slammed at the booth they couldn't move. Oh, so we have to, like, triple the size of our booth next year. That's a good problem to have. It's amazing to have. But I was cracking up because I'm like, oh, I'm sure we'll have a couple people, you know, it's gonna hit Chicago. It'll be great. Oh my gosh. I mean, they were just around the clock. I don't know if Paulo got to eat. I think between his lectures and and doing demos, it was like it was wild. Yeah. Yeah. You were speaking a few times, weren't you? Yes, I was, I was, uh, all over the place in, um, on Friday, but I think the most exciting one was actually Saturday because a couple of weeks before Chicago, I got a call from Brian Bini from Pictet and asked me, you know, it was a conference call with the guy from, um, John Dental. I want to say his name is Jeff. I might be completely wrong. Somebody from Zorn got you on, and they asked me. Hey, um, do you mind working in the booth on, uh, on Saturday? I was like, hell yeah. Wait on it. Yeah. For, uh, at the Zorn booth. Oh, okay. And, uh, just demonstrating how to staining glaze. All these, uh, hybrid prototype, basically. So on on Saturday morning, I was walking around, uh, at the, uh, I think it was the, the East tower with a bag of dentures and hybrids and, uh, over the, uh, the auto flash. I was walking around and I was like, oh, my God, the only place that will be normal. Yeah, exactly. It was so funny. With real guys, are there labs that are using this as their complete restorative option? I mean, are people running labs on this software? Yes. That's. Absolutely. I had no idea. Lots of labs. Yeah. And I think the cool thing about it to Elvis, right, is typically the way this works, right, is they're utilizing something else today and they hear about it. So then we'll go in and we'll do the demo. And a lot of times people are pretty leery because change is scary, right? So like even when we were talking about the utilization of the software, it takes some time to get used to. I mean, change is change, right? You got to give yourself a little grace. But what ends up happening is we do these demos and they're like, all right, well, I'm going to sign up and I'm going to do the I'll do cat or full suite, which I can talk a little bit about the differences with all that. But yeah, I'll sign up, but I'm going to keep my other software and I'm like, you know, that that is totally their call. Um, and then we typically get a call like six months later or like four months later and they're like, oh my gosh, that new upgrade. It was like the one thing that I was holding on to whatever form and now I don't need it. And then, you know, then that's when it becomes their exclusive selection, which is which is kind of cool. You know, as a product manager, that's what you're praying for, is that you provide that kind of one stop solution for people, you know. Yeah. So, Pablo, you probably have used three shape. You've probably used exo CAD. Yep. I even used dental wings. Oh, God. Don't even. Me too. But how is that real guide with doing these restorative things? Because I think this is going to be a lot of interest for our listeners. Not, you know, not everybody does surgical guides, I get it, but how is it just designing a crown? I mean, is it it's actually pretty straightforward. Like it's actually really, really easy. Yeah, that's the way it should be. Very easy. And before joining the concierge, that was actually one of my main software to do hybrids and all the single units, uh, implant crowns. I've designed lots of, you know, permanent teeth, uh, permanent crowns in zirconia. Not, you know, not resin. Sure. Even though I speak for resin companies, I still don't think it's. I can call them permanent. Yeah, yeah. So that's amazing. But, you know, to each their own. But yes, I did lots of crowns, uh, single units from a single unit up to a full hybrid with the bar. And I never had any issues. That's awesome. I mean, doing the full hybrids alone is pretty. Oh, yeah. No, it was awesome. Honestly, it was super easy. Easier than three shape. Especially because in three shapes, sometimes you get that stupid error. Um, let's face it, or whatever arrow it was. Yeah. It's like you just want to throw throw it out of the window sometimes. Never. Have you used three shape newer windows. What I'm hearing. Yeah. No. There was one. Oh my God. Every time I would design a hybrid, every time you would draw that the the tissue line, you would get this error message. And I can't remember the name of it, but it was driving me nuts every time. And the only workflow that. You can get around with was to close the system, close the file and reopen it. Yeah. It's like you got to be kidding me. Yeah. No, but Real Guide has been. It's been rock solid for for hybrids and single crowns. Even dentures. Like there is a workflow for dentures and have separated the teeth. Is not quite there yet. I gotta be honest with you. I'm sure it will be at some point, but it's three. Ship is still the king there in my opinion. For dentures. Yeah, especially because has crazy libraries like, you know, the the lucid library, the IPN. Yeah, all the molds and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean those are, those are phenomenal libraries in in real guy. We don't have them yet. I'm sure eventually we will. I'm not too concerned about it. Sure. But, uh, when it comes to restorative speaking, you can design pretty much whatever you want. Like you need a Maryland bridge. You need a three unit bridge. A four unit bridge. It's done. Deal. You can do it. That's fantastic. And to me, the appeal is I can plan the case. I can do the stackable guide for the case. I can then do the restorative part on the case and I've never left the software. Exactly. You don't have to export a style file, open a new software, make sure you close that software because two software's together. Sometimes it blows your computer out. Yes it does. Yeah. So all in one software, which is I think is the most amazing thing about this about real guide. And that's why I've been pretty much advocating it since like started working on it. And that was like almost a little over four years now actually with the planning. And a year later I got involved with the beta testing for for the Cat, and I was super excited about it. Yeah, I remember you telling me about the software years ago. Yeah. And see, my my lab bought into another software at the time and I was stuck with that. But my current lab, I, uh, I'm using real guide as often. No, no, it's it's a great software for new users. I would definitely recommend spend some time. Don't just say, oh, this thing is crap. And you just, you know, throw it out. Basically, take some time, learn the software, you can do some amazing stuff. I'm giving props, but your instructional videos. Super easy to find and they make sense. So I don't know who was I don't know who was behind that. Maybe. Tiffany you were. Well, I was I was part of the team when they were asking for those or we were asking for them. I should state, you know, that was a big part of, you know, getting the word out there, but then also knowing that sometimes people just want to snip it. So yeah, so we did we broke down each and every step. So if you are brand new to it, it's not as involved and overwhelming because you can literally go on when you have three minutes and watch one of the sessions and it'll fill you in on one part or process to the case. Yeah. Just bite size which which I'm glad to hear that that, you know, that's something you noticed because I thought that was really important and have heard really positive things about, you know, how many times I needed a how to. And then I find a video and it's two hours long. That's not happening. I'm not gonna know I need to I need to solve my problem within a few minutes or. Right, like Paolo, throw it out the window. I mean, those are my options. Tiffany, you mentioned kind of like options for people. What are the different options? What's best for a lab wanting to get into it? Give me the breakdown. Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, what I would say is to definitely we have a full real guide team. I would definitely suggest doing a demo and getting that scheduled rate just so you can see what it's capable of. Ask questions and learn while visually seeing. Where do they go? Really? What is the website? Yeah. Real guide. Com and then you can there's a button there to set up a demo. I mean it's that easy. Is it polo. Does polo give the demos. Yes. It's just me. Just you? Yeah. Just if you can find his computer, he might have thrown it out the window. Yeah. Bingo. He seems to do that every time he's scheduled for a demo. We don't understand it, but that's. That's how it works, though. Yeah, but I would definitely say the demo is important, right? And then understanding that we have the plan module, that you can download it and you can run through the plan and that we don't even charge for that just so you can get used to, oh, you can play with it without paying for it. You got it. That's huge Elvis. We want people who utilize and implement this technology to not regret it. We don't want to be the thing. The people you walk by at the next Chicago lab day and say, oh, I bought that software and I never used it. I mean, nothing worse. Yeah. No, we don't want it. So, you know. You know, download it. Do the demo. Play around with it and then ultimately guide. If you want to produce surgical guides. That's one of the modules that we sell for surgical guides. So that gives you access to doing treatment, planning, designing guides and then exporting. Right. So you can produce a guide yourself. So with the plan all you can do is place implants. But all the implants are available. Yeah you can play around okay. That's really neat. That's I mean that's super cool. It's pretty great. It truly is. And I mean, for us it's just a really nice way to get used to it. I mean, essentially what happens is people play around with it. Then they either get the guide because they want to make the surgery, of course. Right. Or have there's much more that you can do within the guide module than within trial. Right. And the trial, just so you know, is for a very specific time. You can't be in the trial period for three months, unfortunately. Right. So oh okay, I get you. Yeah. Yeah. So you can play around and then there's guide. Then if you want to utilize the app which we talked a little bit about, you know, going on your iPad or your iPhone, there's an app that you can utilize and purchase. And then next up is for restorative design. You do the real guide CAD module and that gives you the restorative Capabilities we discussed. And then if you want all of it, you want to be able to. Treatment plan. You want to be able to produce and you know design and produce surgical guides. And you want the CAD that's called our full suite subscription. So it kind of just depends on what you want. And again, we're not going to try to upsell. I mean we want you to have for your lab what you're going to utilize and be comfortable with. So that's the demos. What that's all about is to figure that out right. And get to know each other a little bit, and then make sure you're also set up to be supported. So for CAD specifically, since we know that those are usually more involved cases, we have two institutes, ones in Florida and ones in California where you can go and we will sit with you for two days. There's some expense to it, but it's really your travel. Yeah, cost is, but you go and you learn how to utilize CAD to the best of your abilities. So we'll continue to support through educational efforts, uh, the CAD software as well. I actually saw an event coming up I was really interested in, but it was right around the time I was doing something else. So I'm definitely going to look at doing another one. I'd love to get more into the cad part, especially with these full arches we're doing, because I'm relying on the lab to make me the restorative part. An exo cat or three shape, and then I gotta bring it in and line it up. And I tell you it, you know, I'm not patient. So I want to get the thing going. And it takes them like three days to make me a denture and I'm ready to go. I love it. Yeah. So Florida, uh, Carlsbad I believe has has those options for the cat part. And if you want to learn more about the surgical guide aspect, uh, input Concierge does every month in San Antonio, Texas, every month has a meeting where you can just sit there all day and learn how to do guided surgery, and those are awesome. Those are so well attended. Elvis. We had to. We have to do it every month just to keep up with it. Yeah. And it goes through the whole like from beginning to end on how to plan cases and different types, different types, single, full arch, single full arch, every bone supported, pin supported. Wow. So there's always, you know, you can do both. And I gotta be honest with you, they're not that pricey either because it all the price that Zim charges is included the plane ticket and hotel. So it's part of it. It's part of it. Yeah. So it's it's really when you look at everything, it's not bad at all. Okay. I can take this out if you want me to, but didn't I see that it was $800? I believe it was. Yeah. For for the Florida one and 400 for the. And that includes plane and hotel. Yes. Yeah. They're they're pretty cost effective. I mean we're just really with, you know, trying to cover just some of the expense to get people there. But the programs themselves, we just want to share the word and make sure everyone's comfortable with the products and services, you know. Oh, I want to go to all of them now. You should, you should. Yeah, I'm going to actually I think next month is Darren and uh, Casey. Right. Or. No. Andy, that's the, uh, Carlsbad, California CAD one. You're talking about that one or. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I got a, I got, I got an email sometime and I was like, oh that sounds really exciting. So this is great stuff. So Paolo Tiffany, thank you so much. I'm super psyched about what the software, the potential it sounds like what it can be doing here. And it already does so much. I can't imagine what it will be doing in a year from now. Oh yeah, I'm excited. We are too. And it just, you know, I think for us, being attached to the innovation of our industry is so important. Right. And just feeling like you're a part of it. Right. Part of the growth. Part of making things easier for our laboratory partners. It's pretty exciting. It's of all my products that I get the privilege to represent. This is this is my favorite. This is my favorite kid. I love it and I will scream it from the mountaintop is we have something really special here. So for anybody who's struggling and needs help with software solutions, I it is truly remarkable. And I would suggest giving it a whirl and scheduling a demo. You know, and for someone that doesn't even work for the company, I agree. I've used a lot of them in real guide to me is by far the best. I might be a little biased because, you know, I work for real guy. Well, not real guy, but a company that owns a real guide. But I transition pretty much everything to a real guide. Mhm. Just because it was a lot more powerful than three shape less bugs, less glitches, less issues. Pretty straightforward workflow. Yes. There's you know you have to learn the bits and pieces basically. I mean it's just like any other software. Anything else. Yeah. Anything. But ultimately once you get used to it, it's. There's no coming back. There's no turning back. Yeah. Once you go real, you never go back. That's it. Well, listen, we have a guy on our team. His name is Casey Martin, and he always goes. And he has this accent that I will never be able to properly replicate. But he always says real guys, real good. And I'm, like, cracking up, guys, real good. I love it. It needs to be our slogan. I'm like Casey, but now it's kind of catchy and I don't know, we might be on to something, you guys. I think you should. I think I know what I'm naming the episode. I love it. That's it. I, I know he'll be happy about that. Well, again, Tiffany and Paolo, thank you so much. I appreciate your time coming on to talk about a software that I get to use a lot. I don't, you know, I talk to a lot of people on this podcast about software I never see. I really did enjoy that. And to anyone listening, seriously, check it out. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. Well, we'll see you at the next show. Have a good weekend. You too, man. All right. Take care. A big thanks to Paolo and Tiffany for coming and keeping Elvis entertained. And I know you geeked out. I totally, totally do for an hour. Talking about surgical guards, I really am sorry that I was unable to be part of this conversation, but I did learn a lot more about surgical guides than I think. Actually, I did want to kind of want to cross over a little bit. So do yourself a favor, do yourself a favor and check out the software at real. Com. You can actually catch Pablo on June 3rd. He's got a live webinar where he will be demoing the software. We will post the link on this episode show notes. But if you want your own demo and a chance to play around with it for free before deciding if it works for your lab, head over to Real Guide and don't just take it from them. Take it from Elvis. Elvis loves that stuff. I do, and as soon as I stop recording, I'm going to go right back to my guide I'm working on. Are you working today? Yeah. It's hard to do guides when I'm also out and about all day. So yeah, you got to focus. Yeah. Weekends and evenings are my guide. Designing time. Yeah. You gotta focus, I get it. Well, um, go back to it. I'm going to have some coffee. There you go. All right, everybody, that's all we got for you. And of course we will talk to you next one. Have a good one. Bye. Oh, yeah. That's a great story. The views and opinions expressed on the voices from the Bench podcast are those of the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or voices from the bench, LLC.